In the field of printers, a common part of the printer is a ribbon cassette which is secured to the printer and which contains an endless ribbon. The ribbon is normally contained in a stuffed manner in the body of the cassette and is driven by drive gears out an exit port, along a path adjacent the print head of the printer, and in an entrance port to the cassette body. In this regard, the ribbon is reused by continually driving the ribbon past the print head for millions of printing operations. Such long use of the ribbon is often achieved by training the ribbon at an angle past the print head in order to utilize a greater portion of the ribbon in printing operations.
A common printer that is widely used in the industry is the wire matrix printer which employs a plurality of solenoids normally positioned along a horizontal plane and actuated to drive single wires against the ribbon and the paper or like record media for imparting character images thereon. The use of four such solenoids has provided a printing speed that has been acceptable in many business areas for many years. However, it is seen that with greater demands for better printing quality and higher speed operation, the ribbon cassette needs to be improved to provide the required printing quality and output.
Representative documentation in the ribbon cassette area of printers includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,209,261, issued to D. W. Bell on Jun. 24, 1980, which discloses a ribbon cassette with the ribbon traveling at an angle throughout the cassette.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,942, issued to H. Nagasawa et al. on Oct. 14, 1986, discloses a ribbon cassette having a reinking mechanism for extending the life of the ribbon.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,758,105, issued to H. Nagasawa et al. on Jul. 19, 1988, discloses a ribbon cassette having means for maintaining the ribbon in a proper path through the cassette and past the printing station.